


Nock, Draw, Loose

by broi



Series: The Dreadfort [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, BDSM, Bottom Ramsay Bolton, Dirty Talk, Edging, Emotional Manipulation, Forced Orgasm, Going to Hell, I may have a small thing for Iwan Rheon going NOCK DRAW LOOSE, Inspection, M/M, Masturbation, Mind Games, Non-Consensual Touching, Object Insertion, Oh christ here we go, POV Ramsay Bolton, Parent/Child Incest, Past Character Death, Ramsay is his own warning, Rape/Non-con Elements, Roose is a fucking worse warning, Sibling Incest, by a small thing I mean a BIG RAMPANT THING, dubcon, dubious metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 22:31:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11323047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broi/pseuds/broi
Summary: Ramsay Snow has been at the Dreadfort just over a year. Domeric Bolton, Roose's true-born son, retrieved him from the mill where he was born, desperate for a brother of his own to share the burden of being the heir to the Dreadfort. Now Domeric is dead, and Ramsay is alone, Roose finally deigns to talk to him about what being an heir entails.HEED THE TAGS, they're not there for shits and giggles.





	Nock, Draw, Loose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emphysematous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emphysematous/gifts).



> I usually write funny shit. Nothing funny about this. You've been warned.
> 
> For Emphysematous who asked for Roomsay, early on in Ramsay's Dreadfort experience, with past Rameric including the headcanon that Ramsay DID kill Dom as canonly suggested, but instead of deliberately he did so accidentally, though object insertion that Domeric begged for, which subsequently went very wrong. Sunshine, lollypops and rainbows, and all that.

They are neatly arranged in a row, the newly-tipped but featherless arrows that Ramsay has been working on throughout the afternoon. He had planned on a ride but the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and there is something about the Dreadfort’s walls that still unsettles Ramsay even though he’s lived there over a year now. He prefers to be outside whenever he can. The walls are alien to him; thick, cold stone, and too many corridors and rooms. He doesn’t miss the mill. He doesn’t miss it at all. 

The outhouse near the barn is much smaller and the walls are not huge, wide stone but are instead some sort of sheet metal banged together by a lad in the forge. The driving rain makes a great clatter as it smashes into the side of the shed, a sound that Ramsay finds oddly soothing. It’s cold, so he’s pulled together a fire in some loose bricks with some logs from the barn next door, and as he finishes the final tip on the last arrow, he sits back in an old leather chair, flings a boot onto the table, and then the other one across his ankle. 

Fletching arrows is one of Ramsay’s most favourite things to do. It’s methodical, see. Therapeutic. Satisfying. He’s good with a knife – he always has been – and he can carve out a straight nock so quickly that even the arms master at the Dreadfort had been surprised. He’s brought a new way to do a common whip from his time at the mill, as well: at the Dreadfort they loop the thread across the vane of the feather, just as he does, but he’d shown them how to twist the loop before wrapping the thread around, which leads to a more secure fastening. 

Ramsay had been glad when someone had told his father about that, but his pride had been quickly squashed when Roose pointed out that the son of Lord Bolton should not be undertaking menial work like fletching when there were plenty of good men to do the job for him. 

Ramsay twirls his knife in his fingers, sets the shaft of an arrow between his knees, and carves out the start of a new nock. 

What with his concentration, the sound of the rain hammering on the metal, and the crackling of the fire, he doesn’t notice that his Father has entered the outhouse until his boots appear in Ramsay’s periphery, glistening from the weather.

“Ramsay.”

His knife hovers over the arrow for a second. He doesn’t look up. “Father,” he mutters. And then his knife is back in the groove, nicking away, confident and careful.

When his father speaks again, his voice is quieter, but with more conviction. “Ramsay. Stop that and listen.”

Ramsay’s hand stills. He’s glad he’s looking downwards, into his lap, because he genuinely can’t help the instinctive eye-roll that comes of its own accord, and that he is exceptionally glad Roose cannot see. He sorts his face into at worst a blank expression, and at best something he hopes is fairly ingratiating, before looking up at where Roose stands above him. 

“Father! A pleasant surprise.”

“I would speak with you. Put down your arrows. Your full attention is required.”

“I’m not a halfwit. I can do more than one thing at once—”

Roose fixes Ramsay with a cold, unflinching stare, which Ramsay returns for three seconds or so – longer than normal – before his hand drops the arrows on the table. He curses himself for being so easily manipulated. 

“You have been at the Dreadfort for over a year.”

 _And you’ve spoken to me…four times? Five?_

“I have indeed, Father. I cannot thank you enough for your—”

“Be quiet. It will have not escaped your attention that since Domeric’s death, I am left without a true born heir.”

Ramsay grinds his teeth into his head. _Escaped his attention, it has not._ He does not want to think about Domeric any more than he already finds himself doing, most moments of most days. The outhouse is somewhere in which the noise of the rain, and the workings of his hands, can drown out the memories of Domeric, how he brought Ramsay from the farm, and how he tried to make Ramsay good enough for Roose to call a son.

Tried.

_Failed._

“I understand, Father—”

“You do not. But you will.”

Roose regards him coolly, his stare unflinching. Ramsay wishes he could stare back, but instead his gaze drops to the fire. Roose extends the flat of his palm, curls his fingers. An unspoken order for Ramsay to stand. This time, his disgruntled eye-roll does not escape Roose’s notice.

“Insolence befits your birth, but that does not mean it will be tolerated. _Stand._ ”

Ramsay swings his ankles from the table and stands. He clasps his hands behind his back, spreads his legs, puffs his chest. His chin is inclined slightly, allowing him to peer down his nose at his father. If this annoys Roose, it doesn’t show. His father says nothing for a very long time, and despite himself Ramsay feels more and more discomfort at the way Roose’s eyes rake over his body, from his face down to his shins, and back up again, lingering at the lacings of his breeches.

“Take off your trousers and your undergarments.”

Ramsay’s not wearing any fucking undergarments, which is _dreadful_ , and why in seven hells does Roose want him to take off his breeches?

“Father, I—”

“You will do as you are told. Perhaps if you accept instruction, you will come to understand the nuances of this house that have as yet evaded you.”

Ramsay stares at his father for a long minute. A body is a body, and the man standing before him is just a man as he himself is. Slowly, Ramsay unlaces himself and pushes his breeches to the floor. He steps out of them, kicks them aside. This is _nothing._ If Roose thinks he can humiliate him, he’ll have a shock when he lifts his tunic and exposes his cock. Ramsay has nothing to be ashamed of in that department. The hairs on his legs stand on end as the cold, wet air from outside blows in and around his bare buttocks, as the fire warms the front of his thighs.

Roose looks him in the eye. Ramsay stares right back.

“Continue with your arrows.”

Ramsay stares at him. “ _What_.”

“ _Continue_ …with your arrows.” 

If he were to protest, to question, Ramsay suspects whatever Roose has planned may shift into something altogether more unpleasant. Not that this – whatever _this_ is – could possibly be considered enjoyable. Although, Ramsay supposes, his stomach turning slightly, it is in its own way preferable to being actively beaten, or worse, outright ignored. He leans towards the table, fingers closing around an arrow’s smooth shaft, before straightening up. 

Roose inclines his angular chin towards the chair. “Sit.”

The leather is hot and sticky on Ramsay’s bare backside. He shifts from cheek to cheek, peeling his flesh away from the material. It’s futile, but he can’t bear the sensation of moulding into the thing. He cannot settle. The thought of tearing his arse away makes him wince.

“ _Still,_ ” intones Roose.

Ramsay stills.

For what feels like an lifetime, Ramsay sits as dumb as a mute, arrow in his lap, as Roose regards him with a stare almost expressionless, save for the almost unnoticeable narrow of an eye betraying…what? Interest? Anticipation? Intrigue? _Contempt, probably,_ thinks Ramsay. He shrugs his shoulders, asking without words, _’what now?’_ , because he knows that words are ill-advised.

“Are you so much of a halfwit you cannot recall a simple instruction given a mere minute ago?”

“No, Father—”

“Then _continue with your arrows._ They will not fletch themselves.”

Indeed they will not.

Ramsay begins to work his knife into the end of the turned wood, nicking gently so as not to splinter or split it. He rarely can focus on anything as keenly as when he is working with his knife on a piece of wood. There’s a gentleness to the brutality of carving that Ramsay loves. He can almost forget that he is waist-down naked, or that his father is there, watching his every move.

“Open your legs.”

Ramsay meets his father’s eyes. “I can’t.” When Roose says nothing in reply, Ramsay swallows, hard. “I can’t cut the nock without stabilising the shaft between my knees. _Father._ ” He hadn’t meant to grit his teeth so fiercely. It’s a laughable second, how long Ramsay wonders whether Roose noticed his impoliteness. 

“You will do as instructed without that insolent tone. Finish the nock and open your legs.”

How long can cutting a nock feasibly take? _However long he’s able to drag it out, it would never be long enough,_ Ramsay thinks. With his left hand, he turns the shaft 180 degrees after every few cuts he makes with the knife in his right, ensuring an even groove. Even now, naked from the waist down, humiliated and terrified, he feels oddly proud of his work: a true, straight nock with no lean, with no workbench or clamp either, which really is quite an achievement. He stares at the perfect gap for a moment, studying it, before lying it down next to the others on the table. 

Roose’s eyes burn into him. He has no choice now. Did he ever? No more nocks behind which to hide. So Ramsay opens his legs, and the flesh on his thighs pulls away from the leather in a slow, tearing burn. 

“You will remain still,” says Roose. He advances towards Ramsay’s chair. “The only movement you will make is to cut or whip your feathers. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Father.”

Roose isn’t even looking at him. At his face, anyway. His glare is trained on Ramsay’s crotch, where his cock hangs limply as though apologising for itself. It isn’t the biggest, though he’s never received any complaints about its size – nobody would dare – but now, under the ice of Roose’s gaze and the clammy heat in the outhouse and fucking horrible leather chair, Ramsay’s never seen it go so small. Fury swells in his chest; even his own fucking parts are deserting him, leaving him with this monster of a man, this twisted parody of a parent. 

Why the fuck did Domeric take him from the fucking mill in the first place? He’s not wanted here. Roose will just pick his limbs from his body, one by one, like taking wings from a fly. Ironic, Ramsay supposes. He used to enjoy similar predilections himself, back when he was a miller boy. He could do as he pleased. Everybody was terrified of him. And now, here he is, a minnow in a lake, with a great pike circling him. It will devour him, most certainly, so it doesn’t need to rush. 

Ramsay’s fingertips reach out to an arrow on the table. He has decided that he will not tremble, so he does not. He is thankful to his arrows for being there to occupy his hands, and thankful to his hands for nurturing years of muscle memory. He can fletch arrows with his eyes shut and his mind a million miles away. He’s cut his feathers already, sliced them down the vane in a perfect slit, and now he positions the cock feather perpendicular to the nock, two inches down from the groove. 

“Remain still, bastard,” says Roose quietly, and when Ramsay’s entire body prickles with gooseflesh, he continues through it, focusing on pulling a length of waxed thread from the spool to begin tying the common whip. 

Roose crouches between Ramsay’s legs. Ramsay can sense Roose’s gaze shifting from his groin to his face, but he keeps his eyes focused on the arrow in his hand, the careful winding of the thread. He will not look at his Father. He tells himself it is because he has decided not to give Roose the satisfaction. He ignores the fact he is following his orders. 

“The Maester tells me you have unclean inclinations,” Roose begins. Ramsay tenses as his father’s cold fingers touch the underside of his balls, ghosting at the seam of skin there. “It is your bad blood. You will be inspected, and it shall be determined if there is enough in you of use to me, or whether you are too tainted, beyond function.”

The thread has whipped in perfect formation. There isn’t a gap or overlap. It is a thing of beauty, truly. The hen feathers are next, but Ramsay needs to reach for them on the table, and if his hands fall idle for the second needed to do so, he knows he will tremble and flinch. So he holds the half-fletched arrow in his pale fingers and stares at it.

“I know what you did with my trueborn heir.” Roose turns Ramsay’s balls over between his fingertips. “I allowed it. I had hoped Domeric’s body would cleanse you.” He squeezes gently, so gently, and Ramsay stares at the feather as hard as he can so he doesn’t squeal. “I was wrong.”

Ramsay would have followed Domeric anywhere. _That’s_ why he took him from the fucking mill. He only had to say the word _’brother’_ once, and Ramsay’s curiosity turned to thirst. It hadn’t been sordid in the beginning. It had been innocent, almost: a sudden rush of belonging, as though his life of frightening and being feared had clicked into an alignment whereby he no longer needed to frighten or be feared. He had a heritage, a purpose, a family name to which he would aspire. Perhaps one day he would be legitimised. Dom used to say it all the time. He was so resolute in his assertions. _”Father will come to know you and he’ll make you a Bolton,”_ he’d state, as though it were fact akin to the sun’s rising at the beginning of the day. 

_Brother._

It was hard to say when the word became something new, but it did. _Bad blood,_ thinks Ramsay bitterly, and he blinks away the tears in his eyes as quickly as they bloom. It had been something about the way Domeric said it. Like a forbidden delight, wine stolen from the Dreadfort’s special cellar. Domeric felt it too, although he had at first been more resistant than Ramsay. Domeric had been more _good_ than Ramsay. For a time, it made Ramsay want to be good too, but Domeric wouldn’t let him. He needed Ramsay to be the instigator, the one to snarl _yes, big brother, lie back and open your mouth,_ all teeth and glittering eyes, because Domeric needed to _forget_.

Ramsay tried to be good. He tried so hard. 

“Finish your arrow, bastard.”

“Yes, Father.”

Ramsay lines up the first hen feather, about 120 degrees around from the cock, then begins to bind. Roose’s fingers have left his balls now, are delving back between his arse cheeks towards the crack that separates them. A fingernail pinches where Ramsay’s skin is stuck taut to the leather, and he bites his lip to prevent himself from crying out. 

“When was the last time you were deviant?” Roose clarifies his meaning with a sharp jab to Ramsay’s arsehole. “You may answer.”

“Not – not since Domeric. And—” Ramsay falters. The waxed thread in his fingers hovers, mid-loop. 

“And?”

“And he never – I mean, I was never – defiled in that way.”

Roose’s eyes meet Ramsay’s. “It is not enough you ended my bloodline. You also had to make a woman of my true born son and heir in doing so.”

 _He wanted it,_ begs Ramsay in his mind. _He never entertained the idea of the other way. I asked him to. He never let me._ His hand is still paused mid-fletch, his whole body tense, overwrought. Roose nods towards the arrow.

“Continue,” he instructs. 

Slowly, Ramsay winds the thread around the shaft as Roose’s finger probes gently at his tight opening. The leather is sucking sweat from his skin and he can feel Roose’s finger gliding in it, hot and wet at where his buttocks meet his thighs, at where his balls settle on the chair. He doesn’t move a muscle for a long while, but when Roose’s finger returns to his hole, he clenches involuntarily and Roose looks at him.

“Lift yourself,” he says. 

“….lift?”

“Hover. I will pass my hand underneath you.”

Ramsay’s thighs and buttocks make an audible tearing sound as he separates himself from the leather chair. A mere inch of space separates him from the furniture beneath, and true to his word, Roose passes his flat palm through the gap. Without breaking eye contact, Roose withdraws, turns his hand palm-up, and returns it to the hot space underneath Ramsay’s cock and arse. 

“You will remain in this position as I inspect your maidenhead.”

Ramsay doesn’t know which is worse: the burn in his thighs, the heat beneath his buttocks, the chill of Roose’s clammy hand, the ice of his stare. Unsteadily he reaches for another arrow, three more feathers. Anything to take his mind off the ache, the fear. And when Roose twists a finger up inside him, straight and true with no hesitation, Ramsay grips the arrow so tightly he fears it may snap.

“It appears you were telling the truth when you said you are yet unspoiled. A small concession to your numerous misdeeds and failings of character.”

The cock feather is set perpendicular to the nock. Two inches down. His hands are steady but his measurements are off. Ramsay has to reposition it four times before he’s satisfied. His father’s finger curls inside him and he loops the waxed thread around the vane once, twice, three times, and he does not cry out. His thighs are aflame. A muscle in his left calf twitches, shudders, and the finger in his arse twists cruelly, and the thread loops a fourth time, a fifth, and Ramsay burns with the effort of it all. The common whip: secure, fast, sturdy. 

And then the finger has gone, a relief, such a relief, but Ramsay is still hovering in a half-crouch, knowing that even the slightest movement will be too much. The arrow in his hand trembles, and the knuckles that clutch it turn white.

“Sit.”

Ramsay’s knee clicks as he slowly lowers himself into the chair. He is proud of the fact he doesn’t collapse. But pride is a dangerous thing. 

“That is a poor arrow,” Roose comments. “You are too easily distracted.”

Would it be possible, would he be quick enough, to seize an arrow and jab it into his father’s skull? Or bury it just below his sternum, right into his heart? Roose is a cold, calculating man whose movements are carefully considered, graceful glides, but when required, he can be _fast._ All too late, Ramsay realises he has been staring at the arrows. Roose inclines his chin, a hint of a shake of the head.

“Ill-advised,” he says, and Ramsay glowers at him.

All at once, Ramsay finds his father in a crouch between his legs again, but this time his long, pale fingers fall to Ramsay’s length, huddled pathetically between his legs like a frightened rodent. Slowly, Roose begins to massage it, stretching Ramsay’s skin over the head, rolling it between his fingers, working up a barely discernible rhythm. “Your arrows, bastard,” he says, and Ramsay reaches out for the last remaining arrow on the table. This would be much easier to cope with. It’s not intrusive like the finger, or as intimate as the balls, or as painful as half-standing in that fucking dreadful crouch position. All this is, is an old man pulling at a better man’s cock. Ramsay allows himself a smile over the top of Roose’s head and begins winding the thread around the feather and the shaft.

“You have until you finish that last arrow to tell me about Domeric.”

Ramsay freezes. 

“Is there a problem, Ramsay?”

His mouth is suddenly dry. “What – what about Domeric?”

“You took my son from me, Snow. I deserve to know how he felt. How _good_ he felt. You’re going to tell me. And—” Roose nods towards Ramsay’s hands. “Slow down on that arrow. Your work is sloppy when you rush. Measured loops. Careful rotations. That looks like it’s been fletched by a cockless dullard with three fingers. Start again. From scratch. And tell me about my son. About your brother.”

Of course, Ramsay has to undo the thread before he can re-string it, which takes even longer. He’s two loops in when Roose’s glare bores into Ramsay’s eyes, expectant and demanding, so Ramsay fumbles some words. They’re not good enough; he knows it before they’ve even left his mouth. 

“Domeric was kind. He was quiet. Clever—”

“No.” Roose falls into a rhythm on Ramsay’s cock which to an outsider would appear leisurely, languid. “You will tell me how he liked it from his bastard brother. What he felt like around you. How you would take him.”

Ramsay swallows. He can feel a bead of perspiration blooming on his forehead. His thighs no longer stick to the leather chair but swim in sweat, slick and hot. And then, horribly and inevitably, his cock stirs in his father’s hands. A flash of triumph blooms in Roose’s grey eyes, but it is gone as soon as it appeared. And Ramsay knows he needs to speak. 

He closes his eyes, his hands falling to task on his arrow, muscle memory taking over. He isn’t Ramsay Snow, not here, not in this horrible moment in time. He is miles away.

Ramsay’s voice comes out as a croaked whisper. “He liked it when I made him cry.” 

Roose grip tightens on Ramsay’s hardening cock. “Go on.”

“He despaired of me, mostly. Kept trying to – to show me how to be a Bolton. But he liked it best when I – when I would hit him, snarl at him, tell him that he was worthless, a self-entitled lordling cunt. He wanted to feel like nothing at all.”

“And did you do that for your brother, Ramsay?”

Ramsay nods. A trickle of sweat runs down his temple. “The more I did it, the more he wanted. I’d often find him in my chambers, with—” 

“With?”

“With his arse spread on my bed, prepared, oiled, begging me to fuck him. He said bastard blood gave him a thirst like no other. He showed me how to choke him with leathers, beat him with crops and paddles, tie him at his wrists and ankles and leave him for hours, sobbing and broken. If ever I hesitated, he’d – he’d goad me. And -- _fuck_ \-- father, those times were the most – the most--”

Roose slows on Ramsay’s cock, taking the time to run his thumb over the bead of shining fluid at the top. Unable to stop himself, Ramsay gasps. 

“How would my first-born son, my true heir, goad my bastard? Do not neglect your arrow, Ramsay. Remember. Answer questions as I ask them, but otherwise, do nothing but fletch your arrow.”

Ramsay’s shaking hand pulls at the poorly whipped thread. He will have to start again. _Again._

“He – he would goad me by asking me if I thought I was too good to – to touch a Bolton’s cock. That the only way I would ever get a Bolton to – to love a bastard like me is to force myself on him, to take him like nothing more than a fuckhole. That – that our lord father would never tolerate me. That the whole of the Dreadfort would spit on me.”

Seemingly satisfied with Ramsay’s answer, at least for now, Roose resumes a rhythm on Ramsay’s cock. “And how did he feel, wrapped around you? How did it feel to take something that was not yours, that was never yours, that would never be yours?”

“He felt – I wanted -- _agh_ \- it was—”

“ _Tell me,_ Bastard.”

Ramsay pulls the last loop tight on the initial whip, first feather. “I fucking loved it,” he snarls. His hips are still, and Roose’s hand speeds up, faster and faster. The wet sound is obscene and Ramsay’s prick aches with it. “I dreamed one day I’d split him open and fling him on the floor at your feet. Your fucking perfect son. I loved nothing more than pushing him off my cock, snotting and crying and choking on my seed, watching him hit the flagstones gasping for air like a fish.”

With a single upward pull, Roose’s hand is gone from Ramsay’s cock. He growls in need through his nose, his mouth clamped shut.

“ _Liar,_ ” Roose says. His voice is no more than a whisper. “You loved your brother, didn’t you, Ramsay?”

Ramsay turns over the next feather in his fingertips. There is no right answer. There is never a right answer. He presses his feet hard into the cold floor to stop his hips rising from the chair, seeking out some invisible friction for his aching cock. 

“Tell me the truth and I will touch you again.”

The shaft of the arrow trembles as Ramsay lines up the feather. 120 degrees around from the cock. Two inches down from the nock. He can do it with his eyes shut. Muscle memory. A million miles away. Again and again, a looped whip, ingrained within him. His hands are thick and his fingers are short. The ones running gently up and down the length of his prick are delicate and slender. 

“I – I wanted to belong,” murmurs Ramsay, and Roose nods.

“Good boy.”

It’s fast and tight and well-oiled, the resumed movements of Roose’s hand on his cock, and immediately Ramsay is back in the throes of need, pulsing with urgency, his spilling approaching him apace. Roose’s expression doesn’t change – it never changes – but his cool stare is inescapable, and so Ramsay shuts his eyes, loops his waxed thread, bites his lip, drives his feet into the ground. _Good boy._ Yes, _yes._ That’s all he has ever wanted. He fucking _told_ Domeric he wanted to be good, like him –

_”But you’re not good, Ramsay.” Domeric’s face, somewhere far away in Ramsay’s mind, is wan, apologetic. “You keep – you keep fucking up with Father.”_

_“Then tell me how to be! I’m not fucking psychic, and Roose is fucking unpredictable—!”_

_“Some of us aren’t meant to be good. Some of us fulfil other roles. You can find your place as a Bolton in other ways. Learn to hunt, prove your mettle. Perhaps even speak to father about studying how to flay—”_

_“I don’t want to fucking flay. I want Father to treat me like his son. I want him to treat me like he treats you.”_

_Domeric scoffs. “No. You don’t.”_

_“Yes. I do.”_

_“Why do you think I need you to make me fucking forget? Hmm? Do you think it’s a good life, being the only heir to our house? I want to ride, I want to read, and I want to play my fucking harp. And I want to get fucked, Ramsay. It’s your bastard blood. I need it. I am bored with perfection. I loathe expectation. You evil little shit: nobody loves you, nobody wants you…you sick, lonely little pervert--”_

_And then afterwards, as he cried, Domeric would beg Ramsay to hold him and he’d say ‘sorry, Ram, I’m so sorry – I love you, I say these things because I need to make you angry, to hurt me…I don’t know why, I can’t explain it. It’s the only way I can feel anything…’_

Ramsay loops off the final turn on the arrow and all at once he fumbles it out of his hands, his impending orgasm pooling at the base of his stomach, and yet he still doesn’t move, not a single inch, and the only sounds he makes are short, desperate whimpers through his nose and clamped mouth, and Roose pulls up on his wet cock and yes – it is vile and he can’t help it –

“Ramsay. No.”

And he can’t stop the wail that leaves his throat, loud and guttural, as Roose’s hand is gone once more and his spilling, so nearly _there_ , ebbs away from him in a pounding ache as his arse clenches and slides in the sweat on the chair. 

“—father, please, _please_ \--“

“It is unbecoming for a bastard to beg anything of his lord Father, Ramsay.”

Ramsay sobs, and against every will in his body, he twists in the chair, shuddering his cock into nothing, desperate, craving, throbbing. “What – what do I have to do—”

Roose trails a single finger up the length of Ramsay’s prick and Ramsay wishes he was dead.

“You have to listen.”

 _Listen._ Such a simple instruction. No arrows to distract him now. Could he go to a place in his mind where there are a thousand shafts, all waiting to be feathered? Perhaps. But it’s his hands that worry him. The tremble in them will betray him. His bastard blood will throb in them, force him to take his own cock in his hand, or worse, take his own Father about the throat. Squeeze the light out of his eyes until they pop. Ramsay groans, nods. _I will listen._

Slowly, Roose resumes a careful rhythm on Ramsay’s length. It juts obscenely, red and swollen, glistening with fluid, in Roose’s pale hand. 

“If you had been able to control yourself, bastard, I would have taken care of you both. I tasked Domeric to make you worthy. I asked him to show you how to kneel, and crawl, and open your mouth nicely to be fed. Domeric was willing. He was a Bolton. He knew how to behave.”

Somewhere in Ramsay’s throat, he stifles a strangled gasp.

“But each time he came to you, your blood drove him to deviance. His need drove you to depravity. You took my first born, my true born son, from me.”

“I – I didn’t mean to!”

“Listen.” Roose’s movements are speeding up again. Ramsay’s so hard it hurts. “He was always going to take too much of you. He could not help it. He told me everything he asked of you, Ramsay. He recounted the toys, the pain, the desire to be stretched wider and wider. I warned him that he would be injured. And do you know what he told me, Ramsay?”

Ramsay groans, high-pitched, terrified. He shakes his head.

“He told me _just a little longer, Father. He has it in him to be a Bolton. Let me teach him._ ”

“You should have stopped him!” Ramsay sobs. “Why, _why_ didn’t you stop him?”

Roose wraps a second hand around Ramsay’s cock. He is _so close now_. His hips buck into Roose’s hands, all pretence of stillness forgotten. Tears run down his cheeks. He is lost. 

“I didn’t stop him,” Roose says, his voice as measured as ever, “because I felt how hot his blood ran with your bastard taint, and saw how flushed his cheeks were, and how swollen his lips. He looked beautiful, Ramsay. Such a beautiful boy. What was it you fucked him with? What was it that splintered inside him, ruptured his insides? Drove him to his death bed? I ask you, bastard, was it worth it?”

“He – he begged me— I swear it, Father, I never meant to – I loved him, I loved him, _I loved him_ \--” 

“There, there,” says Roose, twisting his hands across the head of Ramsay’s prick. “Good boy. Good honest boy. Ask your lord father permission.”

Ramsay tries. He really does try. But just as his mouth opens it’s all too much: his father’s voice, a soothing quality never before present, and the tight, wet grip across his swollen head, and Domeric’s face, pleading and exasperated all at once, begging Ramsay to use the candlestick on him, because Ramsay’s cock is never enough, not any more, he needs _more_ , and he tries to loop the waxed string around the arrow’s shaft in his mind but the string turns into his father’s fingers and the shaft turns into Ramsay’s cock and he can’t stop it, great strings of seed erupt from him in a sudden burst, like a loosed arrow, splattering his tunic all the way up to his collar, and Roose’s hands don’t stop until the last drop is shaken from him, and Ramsay _cries,_ slumps into the chair, knowingly and entirely defeated.

Roose stands. He flicks his wrist and a glob of seed lands on Ramsay’s sweat-slicked thigh.

“You will clean yourself up and dress for dinner. I am sorely disappointed, both in your lack of self-control and in your second-rate fletching. See to it those arrows are tossed on the fire. If I see any of them in the armoury I’ll flay your index finger and you’ll never draw a bow again.”

And then he is gone, leaving Ramsay alone.

For a long while, he is still. Beneath his buttocks, his thighs, the sweat cools and dries. He is stuck to the leather again, but this time he savours the sensation of pulling himself free. Splattered seed hardens on his tunic, on his skin, crusting in his leg hairs. His tender cock hangs lifelessly on his right thigh. 

When he stops crying and sniffing, he reaches for an arrow. The nock is dead straight; the feathers even and secure. At war, a thousand arrows – a million arrows – streak through the sky like falling stars, their life started and ended in the space of a bowstring and six seconds of sailing air. The rain hammers on the outhouse walls. Somewhere within the shed, water drips into a metal bucket in a rhythmic clang. The arrow rests in his palm. So much work for that short an existence. It seems a crime for a work of art to expire in such a way.

Ramsay snaps the arrow in two and flings it into the flames.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd really appreciate comments on this one. I'm not usually a comment whore but this gave me a mild complex. Cheers folks.


End file.
